Is cyanotype paper affected by x-ray machine from airport security?

Dali · Jul 21, 2023

Hi,

Is it OK to put cyanotype paper in carry-on luggage knowing that it shall go through the security x-ray machine or should hand inspection be mandatory?

Thanks!

BrianShaw · Jul 21, 2023

Cyanotype is exposed with ultraviolet (UV) light and should be totally unaffected by X-ray. It should go through either carry-on or checked baggage scanners with no problem at all.

Daniela · Jul 21, 2023

I've travelled with cyanotype paper in carry-ons and checked luggage and never had any issues.

nmp · Jul 21, 2023

BrianShaw said:
Cyanotype is exposed with ultraviolet (UV) light and should be totally unaffected by X-ray. It should go through either carry-on or checked baggage scanners with no problem at all.

Curious....what is the mechanism by which a silver gelatin film is fogged by x-ray?

:Niranjan.

BrianShaw · Jul 21, 2023

nmp said:
Curious....what is the mechanism by which a silver gelatin film is fogged by x-ray?

:Niranjan.

My understanding is that the silver halides absorb the x-ray, like they absorb visible and UV light. Cyanotype does not employ sivler halides.

Dali · Jul 21, 2023

Thanks for your answers. Very useful!

nmp · Jul 21, 2023

BrianShaw said:
My understanding is that the silver halides absorb the x-ray, like they absorb visible and UV light. Cyanotype does not employ sivler halides.

I guess if x-rays affected cyanotype chemistry, we could have had blue prints for our teeth at the dentist...

:Niranjan.

fgorga · Jul 21, 2023

BrianShaw said:
My understanding is that the silver halides absorb the x-ray, like they absorb visible and UV light. Cyanotype does not employ sivler halides.

Both of these sentences are true. However, they say nothing about the sensitivity to x-rays of the iron salts used in cyanotype.

My feeling (and it is just that, as I have no data) is that the low dose of x-rays used for security scanning combined with the low sensitivity of cyanotype (assuming that sensitivity to x-rays tracks with sensitivity to UV light) means that the risk of exposing/fogging cyanotype paper is minimal.

But, then again, Daniela's actual experience, is the best information herein!

BrianShaw · Jul 22, 2023

The narrow sensitivity characteristics of iron salts are in the first couple of paragraphs.

Cyanotype - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

koraks · Jul 22, 2023

BrianShaw said:
The narrow sensitivity characteristics of iron salts are in the first couple of paragraphs.

Cyanotype - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I would not trust that source for the purpose of this discussion. The Wiki article does (sensibly) not go into the actual physics how ferric salts respond to photons. Given that x-ray photons are more energetic than UV photons, they should in principle be able to accomplish more or less the same. At the same time, the ferric salts likely present a small nuclear cross-section and the sensitivity of the material is orders of magnitude lower than the silver halide in film. The latter is in part due to the fact that in silver halide film, there's a chemical amplification occurring during development that's not happening in most printing processes, including cyanotype. So my gut feeling says that @fgorga is right - but it's a gut feeling, only: a general sense of the magnitudes of a couple of effects that are interacting. The superficial Wiki entry is of very little value, nor is the axiomatic assumption that "x-ray isn't UV and the process is only UV sensitive".

I'm actually pretty confident you could blueprint using x-rays, but it would take a massive radiation dose to accomplish anything.

BrianShaw · Jul 22, 2023

You'd believe your collective guts rather than Mike Ware, from whom the sensitivity range statement originated???? You guys are more confident than I. The actual physics are basically irrelevent to practitioners and might be addressed somewhere by a physisist but I've not seen it. Extending the discussion to "massive radiation doses", sadly, is just something proposed soley for the sake of argument. Trashing Wikipedia as unreliable without specific statements of the unreliable data is so, ummm, errr, 1990's. Try harder, please. LOL

BrianShaw · Jul 22, 2023

BTW, if anyone is interested in the physics of radiation on silver halide, there are several very interesting technical reports from various US government agencies on the topic. They delve deep into the physics and science.

koraks · Jul 22, 2023

Brian, please. The aggravated tone is unnecessary and undesirable. My argument is quite sensible and was formulated in a constructive manner.

BrianShaw said:
physics of radiation on silver halide

Does any of that material also address ferric salts? I suspect not, but it would be relevant to the topic.

BrianShaw · Jul 22, 2023

koraks said:
Brian, please. The aggravated tone is unnecessary and undesirable. My argument is quite sensible and was formulated in a constructive manner.

Does any of that material also address ferric salts? I suspect not, but it would be relevant to the topic.

There is no aggravated tone. My response is/was very calm and collected, as well as sensible and formulated in a constructive manner. In fact, they were even rather light-hearted. You are reading into it feelings/tone not intended and not even present.

And, no... no discussion in those reports on the effects of x-ray on ferric salts. They were all focused on practical issues related to silver halide film in nuclear test and space environments.

koraks · Jul 22, 2023

BrianShaw said:
And, no... no discussion in those reports on the effects of x-ray on ferric salts.

It seems that there actually is some (quite a bit) research out there that has noted sensitivity of ferric compounds (but not specifically ferric citrate as far as I can tell) to ionizing radiation. This only makes me more suspicious of the extrapolation of spectral sensitivity data in a narrow UV band to a context that involves far shorter wavelengths (=higher energy levels). Basically, if UV can manage knock off an electron from an ion, then it's quite plausible that higher-energy particles can do so just as well. How likely this all is depends on many factors and the discussion gets quite complicated pretty fast if you realize that it involves figuring out what the exact cross-section of the target molecule is to the kind of radiation you're exposing it to, and the flux of that radiation. These are mostly unknown parameters to us, which makes me very cautious of relying on a single sentence in a Wiki entry.

I don't intend to discredit Ware, nor Wikipedia, and effectively that's not what my previous post does. I do warn, like @fgorga, against drawing conclusions by abducting certain data into an entirely different domain.

BrianShaw · Jul 22, 2023

koraks said:
... drawing conclusions by abducting certain data into an entirely different domain.

Post 8, "Both of these sentences are true. However, they say nothing about the sensitivity to x-rays of the iron salts used in cyanotype."
Post 9, "The narrow sensitivity characteristics of iron salts are in the first couple of paragraphs."

Statement made and statement responded to... nothing more. What conclusion? What abducted data? What entirely different domain?

I'm really confused by the rabbit hole that seems to have been dug, asssumptions/accusations made, and the confrontation that has resulted. Seems that this topic has hit a nerve but not one with much practical value to the original question asked. The thread could have been over at Post 9.

You can have the last word if that's what you desire. I'm moving on to actually do some photography today (Got a new used strobe yesterday and need to check it out). Peace, out.

pentaxuser · Jul 22, 2023

BrianShaw said:
And, no... no discussion in those reports on the effects of x-ray on ferric salts. They were all focused on practical issues related to silver halide film in nuclear test and space environments.

Even a nuclear test isn't that dangerous is it? All it did to Mickey Rooney's toast in the "Atomic Kid" was to burn it slightly

pentaxuser

BrianShaw · Jul 22, 2023

BTW, I did see some research on the effects of x-ray on ferric/ferrous salt. Quite old but interesting nonetheless. What I saw was salts in solution and research so detailed it was way beyond my comprehension in a quick skim. What is the relationship between those salts in solution versus dried as in cyanotype? What was the point of hte research... purely academic or was there a practical question being answered also?

koraks · Jul 22, 2023

BrianShaw said:
Quite old

Some. Some of it seems to be very recent, less than a decade old. There's quite a bit of it, too.

BrianShaw said:
What conclusion?

That the spectral sensitivity cited from the Wiki article would be relevant in this particular context. If that's not what you meant to say by referring to wiki, then what purpose did it have to mention it?

BJ68 · Jul 23, 2023

koraks said:
Basically, if UV can manage knock off an electron from an ion, then it's quite plausible that higher-energy particles can do so just as well. How likely this all is depends on many factors and the discussion gets quite complicated pretty fast if you realize that it involves figuring out what the exact cross-section of the target molecule is to the kind of radiation you're exposing it to, and the flux of that radiation. These are mostly unknown parameters to us, which makes me very cautious of relying on a single sentence in a Wiki entry.

Made bit research, too. Here where I work (University) we have 32P and 125I, because we use this for assays (Vitamin D3 and Phosphate measurement) and it would be very nice, if cyanotype chemistry would react to the beta and gamma radiation.
To far what I found out the problem is, that the compound as to absorb the radiation. I found this paper https://www.mdpi.com/2310-2861/8/9/599 which mentions under 3.2. Turnbull-Blue Gel Dosimeters which use potassium ferricyanide, ferric chloride and ferric ammonium citrate which is in the direction of cyanotype chemistry. Looked up the term "Turnbull-Blue Gel Dosimeters" see https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/40/051/40051912.pdf and https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/250/1/012013/pdf

bj68

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